Bugs, Mortein and Aerogard
by sazza-da-vampire
Summary: Tosh doesn't like bugs. Gwen doesn't like cockroaches. Ianto and Jack know it. Dr. Owen Harper to the rescue!
1. The Initial Incident of the Cockroach

**I don't own Torchwood, and hopefully never will. I'd butcher it by accident. However, at least three of my friends are capable of destroying the place it's based in - if they had the funds and could get to the other side of the world. Yes, wiltingflowersandpinkribbons, one of them is you, one IS the whovian and the other is the mad scientist. Spunky, i think you'd be more likely to invade while they're filming than to blow it up in retaliation to Exit Wounds.**

**The Cockroach**

Owen looked up from his current autopsy as he heard a shrill scream from the main part of the Hub. He ran upstairs, that scream was definitely Gwen's.

Upon arriving, he found Gwen standing, frozen, with a hand over her mouth, staring at something in front of Tosh. Tosh was holding a spray can, frantically spraying something on Gwen's desk. It was a blue can. _Mortein's red, though_, Owen thought in confusion.

"Cockroach," Gwen squeaked, as Tosh continued her bursts of spraying.

"Where is it?

"It's in the printer!"

"What's that?" he asked, as he walked towards Gwen's printer, pointing to the blue spray can in Tosh's hand.

"Aerogard," Gwen answered simply.

"Tosh, why are spraying a cockroach with Aerogard?" He directed this to the frantically spraying woman.

"It was the first spray thing I saw, and it made it go all wobbly." Tosh continued chasing the cockroach, now away from Gwen's desk.

"That won't do anything," Owen said as he headed for some Mortein, sitting on a shelf seven metres away. He came back, Tosh put the blue lid back on the Aerogard as he sprayed the bug with Mortein. Gwen finally moved, sitting back at her desk, but Tosh stayed where she was, carefully eyeing the cockroach as it died.

"It's still moving."

Owen gave a long-suffering sigh as he got the Mortein again. He sprayed some more on the poor thing, and asked Tosh if it was dead enough yet. She nodded silently, going back to her computer.

As Owen replaced the Mortein on the shelf, he spied Ianto leaning against a wall, smirking at him. Owen walked over to Ianto, glaring at him.

"Let me guess, you put it there?"

"Jack thought that they'd keep their cool, and get the Mortein in a second, or else ignore it. I bet him no less than 100 quid that they'd need Dr. Harper to rescue them."

"Why didn't you bet 200? It was a sure win."

"Jack started to get worried when I upped it to 10. By the time I'd reached 50, he was sweating. He wouldn't go higher than 100, not after I told him that it had to come from his pocket, not Torchwood's funds."

"Seeing as I helped, would you go halves?"

"No."

Jack rushed in from outside, looking all worried about the girls. "What's wrong? Someone screamed."

"You owe me 100 quid."

Jack's face fell as he realised what had happened. Grumbling, he handed over two fifties before going back outside.

**A/N: Aerogard is a mosquito repellent. Mortein is an insect/spider spray. **


	2. The Incident of the Fly

**The Fly**

Gwen looked up to the sound of frantic spraying. She walked into the kitchen, braving Ianto's fury, to find Tosh prowling the kitchen, saying to Ianto "Why do they have to fly so fast after they're sprayed?"

"What are you trying to find?"

"The fly, where is it?"

Gwen could see it hovering right in front of Tosh's right hip bone, but Tosh was looking around on top of the benches. "It's" she started to say, but was interrupted.

"Shhh, I can hear it, listen," Tosh shushed her frantically.

"There!" Tosh sprayed the Mortein at the fly, now sitting on the floor, which buzzed away again, much faster than normal for a fly.

Gwen opened the freezer, taking out a tray of ice cubes. Putting them on the bench, she said, "Tosh, you'd better not be spraying that near any food." She couldn't see any left out, but it's best to be safe. "It's not terribly good to swallow that stuff." Gwen bent the tray, popping out some cubes. She positioned her fingers over most of them, and tipped it upside down over a glass, letting three ice cubes fall into it.

Tosh found the fly again, and sprayed the bug vigorously. "Die, fly, die!" she chanted at it, as Ianto looked on in horror.

"Why were you suddenly struck with the craving to kill flies?" Gwen asked as she filled her glass with filtered tap water.

Tosh ignored her. Ianto walked out of the kitchen, to be faced with Jack. "I think you owe me ten quid," Jack stated calmly.

"Tosh reacted."

"But Gwen didn't."

Owen walked over, thinking about Jack's recent luck in bets. "At least you didn't lose another hundred," Owen smirked at him.

"Lost a hundred, didn't get anything for that one, well, third time lucky," Jack muttered to himself as they all went back to work. Ianto wasn't finished though.

"This time she used Mortein. Pity she didn't pick up the Aerogard again."


	3. The Incident of the Huntsman

**The Huntsman**

Tosh could deal with aliens, disease, corpses, impossibilities, but not bugs. And especially not spiders.

That is why, one morning, when Ianto opened the door to the hub for her, she refused to go in, refused to even move. For you see, there was a cockroach on the floor in front of her. Being devoured by a giant spider.

"What's wrong, Tosh?" Ianto asked her. "There an alien cockroach inside that Jack's not told me about yet?"

"Spider," she croaked, not moving a muscle.

Ianto looked at the floor in front of her feet. "It's just a huntsman. They eat the cockroaches, Tosh."

"I don't like spiders."

Ianto heaved a long suffering sigh. "Toshiko, what do you plan to do when you find a spider while following a weevil?"

"Spiders are evil."

"Well, Tosh, I'm not spraying it. Mortein's not very good for spiders if we want them to stay alive."

"Mortein sounds good."

"Are you even listening to me?"

Silence. Ianto took that as a no.

"Owen!" Ianto greeted him ten minutes later as he walked into the receptionist's office.

"Hey, Ianto. What's Tosh doing?"

"Spider," she croaked again.

"Is anyone inside?" Owen asked Ianto.

"Jack, possibly. Gwen's not here yet."

"Can we get him to spray it?"

"Owen, we are _not_ spraying the spider," Ianto said slowly, stressing the negative. "Huntsmen get rid of the bugs, and you saw Tosh with the cockroach."

"Point taken. We don't want too many of those, they'll disrupt something important one day. Shall we try the direct approach?"

"What, pick her up and carry her to her desk?"

"Yeah. It'll work."

Ianto shrugged, then counted to three. On three, Owen tackled Tosh's legs, and Ianto caught her as she flipped backwards.

.

Gwen froze as she was about to walk into the tourists' office disguising Torchwood as she heard a bloodcurdling scream. Then she ran inside, to find the cog door opened, a single spider sitting innocently on the floor, and Ianto and Owen explaining to Jack frantically that they hadn't been trying to kill Tosh, they were just sick of her standing, motionless in the doorway.

Gwen remembered that Tosh's birthday was next week. _I think I'll get her a plastic spider_, she decided. _Either that or one of those rubbery ball thingies with the slimy cockroaches inside. But I'll put a hole in it first. And hang it above her station. Or stick it to the back of her laptop while she's using it._

Only Ianto looked up worriedly when he heard Gwen chuckle evilly. Jack and Owen were too busy arguing; Tosh was white and shaking in front of her computer.

.

Tosh screamed when she closed her laptop, summoning her four co-workers, one of which was laughing hysterically. There was a huge spider on the lid of her laptop.

Ianto and Owen ran into the main hub, following the screeching, to find Tosh backed into a desk at least ten metres away from her station, and Gwen, who was holding another joke spider behind her back, screaming profanities at each other. Jack was watching it from behind the safety of the glass windows in his office, eating popcorn as if it were an engaging movie.

Gwen hurled the second spider at Tosh when she turned away. And ended up being driven to hospital by Ianto two minutes later.

.


	4. The Final Incident of the Maggots

**The Maggots**

Owen ran out of the autopsy bay, grabbed the Mortein, and ran back in, yelling, "Tosh don't come anywhere near here!"

Of course that piqued her curiosity. She walked in after Jack, and not only she, but also Gwen freaked out. The corpse Owen had been checking over had exploded with maggots.

Th incident of the rubber spider forgotten, the two women screamed, turned around, and ran out of hub – tripping and falling many times in their haste. They burst out of the tourist shop's doors, and ran, and kept running, until they reached a park which had a bike path behind it, following a creek. Breathing heavily, Tosh and Gwen ran to the bike path, and followed it until they reached a bridge across the creek, where they followed a little trail by the water.

They could hear someone or something crashing through the trees behind them, and it didn't exactly register that the alien was dead, and its body had been filled with maggots, just _disgusting_ and _alive_ had registered in their minds. So of course they continued running, until the path came to an end, where a fallen tree spanned most of the way across the creek. Between the bank and the end of the log was about a metre of water, who knew how deep, and Tosh immediately jumped across, crossing the natural bridge so that Gwen could follow. She did, but started jumping as something grabbed her from behind. Screaming, she and her attacker fell into the water.

Apparently it was a metre deep. Tosh kept running in terror when she heard Gwen attacked, and could hear something still following her. She crashed through the trees by the creek, and crossed on a narrow log which would barely hold her weight. She hoped that her pursuer would give up, but it didn't – she was halfway across the creek again when the branch gave way, not strong enough to hold two. Tosh fell into the murky, deep water, shrieking.

.

Tosh came round to find a pair of strong arms pulling her out of the water. She concluded that she must've hit her head while running from the alien – wait, wasn't it dead? And maggots don't move that fast, or make that much noise. She looked into Ianto's eyes and blushed as she realised just how irrational the maggots had made her. Oops.

Once her colleague was satisfied that she wasn't injured, they walked back to where Gwen had been attacked.

To find Gwen and Jack, soaked to the skin, trying to climb out of the water onto the mossy log, or steep, muddy, slippery bank. They weren't very successful.

Eventually, Tosh and Ianto succeeded in pulling Gwen out of the water, and the three of them soon got Jack out as well, and Ianto contacted Owen. His earpiece hadn't gotten too wet, it still worked.

By then, Owen had cleaned up the bay and killed the maggots. "Where the fuck did you catch them?" Owen asked, in true Owen style.

"Can't you just track us?" Ianto retorted. "And bring towels, _someone_ thought it would be a good idea to cross the creek," he glared at Tosh as he said it. She grinned sheepishly at him.

Owen ignored him, but, sure enough, ten minutes later drove up to the park to get them. Owen informed Gwen and Tosh that they needed more Mortein, so Tosh bought two of the biggest red cans she'd ever seen.


End file.
